Two million population increase each decade through immigration

October 04, 2004

Official forecasts just issued by the Government Actuarys Department suggest that immigration is likely to add at least six million to our population over the next three decades, says a new report from think tank MigrationWatch.

Earlier efforts by the government to reduce immigration estimates to make them fit a flawed census have now been abandoned.

The official principal projection is now based on an immigration assumption of 130,000 a year. This is still well below the average of the past five years (which is 158,000) and it makes no allowance for recent government policies designed to stimulate immigration. Even so, according to the official figures, the population of the UK, already the highest in our history, is projected to increase by 6.1 million between 2003 and 2031. 84%, or 5.2 million, will be due to new immigrants and their descendants.

However, Migrationwatch believe (and the Statistics Commissioner agrees) that these projections make inadequate allowance for failed asylum seekers. Its own correction for that gives an immigration assumption of 145,000 a year. This would cause an increase in population of 5.75 million over 28 years or an average increase of two million per decade purely attributable to immigration.

Even this estimate takes no account whatever of illegal immigration. About 50,000 people a year are detected attempting to enter Britain illegally. If a similar number succeed (a low estimate) a further half million should be added each decade (or more if allowance is made for their descendants).

An internal Home Office email, which they were obliged to release to the group recently, read as follows:

I have made this point many times before but can we please stop saying that Migrationwatch forecasts are wrong. I have pointed out before that Migrationwatch assumptions are often below the Government Actuarys Department high migration variant.
(29 July 2003)

This is still the case. The current high migration variant (scenario) would lead to a population increase by 2031 of 7.8 million, of which approximately 6.8million (87%) would be due to immigration and even that figure contains no allowance for illegal immigrants.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: Migrationwatch were viciously attacked two years ago when we issued an estimate of two million immigrants every ten years. It is now clear that this is a conservative estimate. The government should explain why they have stimulated massive levels of immigration without consulting the British people and how and when they propose to bring it to an end. They claim to be building the economy. In reality they are building the population and building congestion. They are also flying in the face of 80% of public opinion.